The Suite Life of Stiles and Sourghost
by Saucery
Summary: Derek is a ghost. Stiles is his anchor.


**THE SUITE LIFE OF STILES AND SOURGHOST**

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><p>Rooting around in the burned-out Hale house in the middle of the forest isn't exactly what Stiles had planned for his weekend, but then again, having his best friend turned into a werewolf hadn't been part of his long-term plans, either.<p>

The thing is, the Hales were rumored to be werewolves. It used to be a bit of an urban legend, back when Stiles was growing up, although most people didn't take it seriously.

But now that the cops have found Laura Hale's body in the woods, badly mauled and with clawed hands and feet and odd patches of fur that definitely _aren't_ human, it isn't just a rumor, anymore. It isn't a legend; it's _fact_.

And damn if that hasn't made everyone in the town go a little crazy, a little paranoid, and all of a sudden, there are talismans hung on front doors and cloves of garlic lined along windowsills - which is ridiculous, since, _werewolves_. Not vampires.

Anyway. It's gotten _weird_. People are spooked and twitchy and always zero-point-five seconds away from reaching for the nearest pitchfork, ready to spit and roast any poor mutt that looks a little different. Mrs. Turnbull, the spacey occult lady that used to do tarot readings at town fairs, has become an overnight celebrity. She's even started up a booming business that sells charms and trinkets, and the neighbors that had once laughed at her are now treating her like a goddamn celebrity.

It's like living in the twilight zone. All of a sudden, Stiles understands why those small-town people in horror movies act so crazy and inbred; apparently, all it takes is a bit of the supernatural to make people go batshit _insane_.

So. This? Is _not_ the best time to have Scott turned into a werewolf. They don't even know who _did_ it, since there are no Hales left alive, except for Peter Hale, but the dude's in some sort of coma, or something. It isn't like it's _Scott's_ fault that he got clawed by some random beastie, but Stiles can't let _anyone_ find out about Scott, anyone at all, or it'll all be over. The townsfolk will fucking_lynch_ Scott if they find out. Or, hell, maybe the FBI or CIA or someone will show up and take Scott away and spend the next fifty years dissecting him, bit by bit. The thought makes Stiles sick. Frankly, he has no idea why people are wigging out like this - Scott is still _Scott_, just… an occasionally fangy and furry Scott. That's all. Being a werewolf isn't _that_ big of a deal. It's not like you stop being a _person_.

Which is really borne out by the Hale house, since it's still a house that people obviously lived in, even if they were werewolves. There are singed pictures on the walls, showing a family that looks like any other family, and there's even a broken cookie jar in what must have been the kitchen.

It's kind of creepy. No, it's _definitely_ creepy. And sad. Really, really sad. It's like walking in a mausoleum, and Stiles feels almost guilty, because this _is_ a place were people had _died_, and he wouldn't normally be desecrating it by trespassing on it, because he's got _morals_.

But they need help - anything that'll teach them about Scott's, uh, 'condition'. And since the Hales _were_ werewolves, maybe there'll still be something in here, a book of spells or a list of herbal remedies or something, _anything_ that might be useful. Stiles sure as hell can't ask Mrs. Turnbull for help; she'll have them burning on a stake within half an hour.

All Stiles needs is a clue about how to lessen the effects of the full moon. And maybe how to stop Scott from getting all yellow-eyed and big-toothed whenever he plays lacrosse. Or gets angry. Or gets horny. Or smells Allison.

They've been damn _lucky_ that no one's found them out so far, because Scott's being as obvious as it's possible to be without, like, wearing a T-shirt that says: _I'M A WEREWOLF, LYNCH ME_. The fact that Scott refuses to give up on either Allison _or_ lacrosse doesn't help, either. Stiles is pretty sure he's losing hair. At _sixteen_. Keeping your best friend's life from becoming a twenty-first century reenactment of _The Crucible_? Is fucking stressful. Stiles won't be surprised if he ends up dying from ulcers by the time he's twenty-five.

If he and Scott even _get_ to twenty-five.

_Fuck._

Scott is currently at home, pretending to be sick, because he can't go to school this close to the full moon without, like, biting Jackson's _head_ off if the bastard makes another not-joke about putting the moves on Allison.

Maybe Stiles should just buy some tranquilizer darts. Online. That shit works on werewolves, too, right?

Scott had better make this up to him. He's skipping _school_, and his Dad will totally ground him for it, after giving him one of those painful and painfully _effective_ I'm-so-disappointed-in-you looks. Augh. Those looks make Stiles want to _kick_ himself.

He's just about ready to give up and go home, when he catches sight of something just under the splintered door leading into one of the bedrooms.

It's - it's a sigil. A _spiral_. And it's got this old, worn rope lining it, a rope leading to _something_, and Stiles is just about to reach out and touch it when a voice behind him says -

"Don't."

- and Stiles almost falls over himself.

"Shit!" He steadies himself against the wall, gasping, and peers up at - at -

- a guy.

Standing at the door.

Or possibly _in_ the door, because the guy's, like, _transparent_ and holyfuckingshit he's _in the fucking door_ -

Stiles's knees wobble. He mumbles, "ohmygod," and then, "_ohmygod_," and wonders for a panicky moment if maybe he hit his head on one of the fallen roof-beams and, like, passed out and is currently _dreaming_, or if maybe his psychological assessment at school was wrong and he's actually fucking _crazy_.

Because, being clinically insane and hallucinating about a ghost? _Way_ better than meeting an _actual ghost_.

"Don't kill me," he manages, and inches backward, away from the door. "I'm - I'm sorry. I didn't mean to - I'm sorry."

But the ghost just _looks_ at him, and it's possibly the broodiest face Stiles has ever actually seen on anyone, although, when he thinks about it, being stuck haunting an abandoned house has gotta make _anyone_ broody.

"I'll - I'll just - leave," he says, but the ghost cocks its head and drifts _closer_, right through the goddamn door, and the air around Stiles gets immeasurably colder.

Oh. Oh, _shit_.

"Don't - don't possess me, okay? I… I'm a really bad container? I eat really unhealthy foods. Nachos and curly fries, that's me. I'll probably die in two hours, anyway. I'm so sick, I can't possibly last the day. I've poisoned myself with maple syrup. I'm killing myself with Gummi Bears." He scrambles back, but the ghost's _still coming at him_. "Also, I'm on Adderall. You'll be the world's most distracted ghost. Or maybe the world's most attention-deficit ghost - "

"Shut up," says the ghost, calmly, and comes to a halt just a few, freezing inches from Stiles's face.

Stiles shuts up.

He - he shuts up.

The ghost stares at him, its eyes an intense, electric blue in the middle of all that foggy ectoplasm, and, yeah, Stiles is going to piss himself at _any moment_.

Stiles swallows. And stares back.

His skin prickles with goosebumps. So, apparently, what they say about the temperature dropping around ghosts? True. Ghosts being able to float through things? Also true. Ghosts being hysterical and disturbed?

…Not so true.

The ghost's less hysterical than _he_ is; in fact, it's not hysterical, at all. It looks _sane_. Saner than Stiles _feels_, which is pretty bad indicator, as far as his own mental stability goes, but -

- but why does the ghost feel so familiar? Is it because it's a Hale? It _must_ be a Hale - it's in this _house_ -

It's sort of young, for a ghost. Or it _looks_ young. It has the face of a fifteen-year-old, or maybe a sixteen-year-old - a boy of Stiles's age. A _shirtless_ boy of Stiles's age. A very built, very shirtless boy. Of Stiles's age.

Way to be helping his self-esteem, here. Even a _ghost_ is in better shape than he is.

Stiles raises his hand. Tentatively. "Um. Permission to speak? Please?"

The ghost's still staring at him. "No," it says.

"Oh. Okay." Stiles shuts up, again, and then _presses himself back against the wall_, because the ghost's, like, _reaching for him_ - "Pleasepleaseplease don't possess me, I'm begging you, don't posses me, where will _my_ soul go, it'll roam the earth forever and never eat another curly fry again, it'll be an afterlife without curly fries, it'll be _unbearable_ - "

"I thought I told you to shut up."

"Meep? Oh my god, your hand, your - h-hand, it's _c-c-cold_ - "

The ghost is touching him. It's _touching him_, putting a misty, chilly hand to his cheek, and it feels more like being brushed by the iciest breeze in the universe than anything else, and for a moment, there's this flicker of _pain_ on the ghost's face, like Stiles is the one hurting _him_, instead.

"Are - are you okay?" Stiles blurts, before he can stop himself or realize how fucking _retarded_ he sounds. Is a _ghost_ okay? What? He's _dead_, of course he isn't okay -

The ghost must think Stiles is stupid, too, because he _considers_ Stiles, like Stiles is something even more unnatural than he is, and pulls his hand back.

Stiles sags in relief. His cheek still feels numb, where the ghost had touched it, like someone had pressed an ice-pack to it for hours. "Thanks. For not possessing me. I mean, not that I _should_ thank you, it's every person's _right_ not to be possessed - it's, like, in the _Constitution_ - "

"You're talking."

"Huh?"

"I didn't say you could talk."

Now, that? Is just plain _rude_. After seeing that expression on his face, though, Stiles is strangely certain that the ghost won't harm him. He doesn't know how he knows that; he just _does_. "Listen here, buddy. It's true, I'm in your haunted house, and I'm trespassing, and that's wrong of me - but I'm not a grave-robber or anything, all right? I'm just - I needed something, and I thought I could find it here, and - uh, fine, that _does_ sound like grave-robbing, but it _isn't_. It's an emergency, okay?"

"What were you looking for?"

What _was_ he looking for? It's not like he can out Scott to a ghost, even if it _is_ a ghost, unless - "You're a Hale, right?"

The ghost doesn't answer him.

"You've gotta be. You're _here_. And you look sorta familiar, like… like maybe I've _seen_ you before…" Stiles casts his mind back. Back before the Hale fire, when he was just nine years old, and when the Hales actually used to show up to Church, on Sundays, even though everyone sort of gave them a wide birth, except for Mom, who seemed to like them and even had this tupperware thing going with Mrs. Hale, and said that Hale Junior was a 'good boy', whatever _that_ meant -

Oh. _Oh_.

Hale Junior. _Derek Hale_. Fifteen at the time of the fire. Sour-faced and kind of withdrawn, even back then, and - how much _more_asocial would seven years of roaming a deserted house make a guy, anyway?

Jesus. _Jesus_. Stiles knows this person. He _knows this ghost_.

For some reason, it freaks him out even _more_, instead of less, like maybe knowing the guy makes all of this more _real_.

Or makes Stiles more insane. Either way.

"You're Derek Hale. Dude, _you're Derek Hale_."

"And you're the Stilinski kid," says Derek, and Stiles's jaw drops.

"You _knew_ me?"

"I knew your Mom."

"You - you didn't have the hots for her, did you? 'Cause I gotta tell you, that's just _wrong_. I mean, I get where you're coming from, she was hella cute, but - just, ew, man. _No_."

"Do you ever stop babbling?"

"Who, me? I'm not babbling. Just because I've met a _ghost_ in a house formerly populated by _werewolves_, doesn't mean I have any excuse to _babble_, right? Fuck. _Fuck_, I can't even - I can't _believe_ this - "

"What. Were you. Looking. For."

"Uh! Well, you know. Anything to, um. Help? With a potential new werewolf situation?"

Derek _glowers_. "Who."

It's really bizarre, being glowered at by a see-through _face_. He can see the _rafters_ through it. "A - a friend. He - we don't know who turned him, all right? It can't be a Hale, obviously, since - I - I'm sorry." Stiles breaks off, cursing himself. How tactful of him, bringing up the awkward fact that the Hales are _dead_, including the guy in _front_ of him. "Er, so maybe it was just some passing werewolf? An out-of-towner, or something? We don't - we don't know, but we need help, and we can't let anyone find_out_, and - "

"Stop."

" - even Scott's _Mom_ doesn't know, because, seriously, what the hell are we going to _tell_ her, she's got enough to worry about as it is, and also Scott's totally hormonal for this girl in his class and keeps popping a boner whenever she's around, which would normally just be kind of embarrassing but right now is fucking _deadly_ - "

"_Stop_."

And suddenly, Stiles is thrown _back_ against the wall, and there's a cold, choking grip around his throat.

Holy shit.

Holy _shit_.

He's being choked to death by a _dead person_.

This was _not_ how his day was supposed to go.

"When I tell you to shut up," says Derek, quietly, like he's just a normal guy and not a _ghost with an asphyxiation kink_, "you shut up."

Stiles nods vigorously. And tries to wheeze.

Derek lets him go.

Stiles gulps in breaths of air.

"You are going to go home," Derek continues, "because the sun is about to set, and it is two nights before a full moon."

"You have a _calendar_ in here?" Then, catching the disbelieving look on Derek's face: "Shutting up! Totally shutting up. Sorry."

"It isn't safe when there's a rogue werewolf on the lose. You will come back tomorrow _morning_, and you will return before sundown. Are we clear?"

"What're you, my Dad? Oh, shit, I was supposed to be… shutting up. How'm I supposed to answer your questions, though?"

Derek closes his eyes. Sighs. And opens them again. "Go," he says. "Come back tomorrow."

"But - "

"_Go._"

"Okay, okay, fine. Jeez. I'd think you'd be _happy_ to talk to someone after however long - "

"Stilinski," Derek growls. Who knew ghosts could _growl_? "_Go._"

Stiles goes.

Not because he's being _obedient_ or anything, but because the sun really _is_ setting, and it's - it's kind of weird that a _ghost_ is worrying about him. A werewolf ghost, even? How out of this world _is_ Stiles's life?

He makes it back home and sneaks up to his room, glad - for once - that Dad's still at work.

He - he isn't freaking out. He isn't _shaking_. It's just that he's still kind of cold, and he's - he's fine. He totally _is_.

_find anything?_ says Scott's text on his mobile phone.

Stiles ignores the text and goes for a shower. When he comes out, there's another text waiting for him (_stiles? u okay?_), which he also ignores. He's - fine, he just - he doesn't know what to _say_.

In the end, after not-thinking about it while microwaving burritos and not-thinking about it while doing his Math homework, he finally picks up his phone and replies to Scott.

_Might've found something. Sit tight and don't go out. See you tomorrow night. KEEP THE CHAINS HIDDEN, OK?_

_the hell?_ Scott texts back. _mom just heard em clinking last time. didn't see them._

_Still, it was a near thing. We can't have your Mom thinking we're into S&M._

_…gross._

_You're the one begging me to tie you up once a month._

_can it, man. g'night._

_'Night._

He doesn't know _why_ he didn't tell Scott about Derek. Maybe it's because he still isn't sure he didn't just hallucinate the whole thing, or - no.

That's not why.

That's not why, at all.

He… doesn't know if Derek's safe, or trustworthy, and other than the fact that Stiles's Mum seemed to like him, when they were both alive, Stiles has nothing like a current character reference to go on. It's not like he can ask anyone about a _ghost_. And while he gets the feeling that Derek _is_ trustworthy, and that he _does_ want to help (why?), Stiles also doesn't want to involve Scott. Yet.

Scott has a habit of going off his head and doing things without thinking about them very much, and he has no idea what Scott will do with a _ghost_. Maybe he'll try to find a way to exorcise the poor bastard before even giving him a chance to _help_ -

Wait.

_Who_ is he protecting, exactly?

What the _fuck_?

Stiles goes to bed, feeling distinctly but _completely justifiably_ disconcerted, not only by the day's events but by _himself_. Dad still isn't home, and that's probably for the best, because Stiles is sure his face is an open book, at this point.

Anyway. He has a date with a ghost. Tomorrow.

He'd better catch some sleep.

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><p><strong>to be continued.<strong>

Please review!


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